LITERAL REMAINS

Sully Cuccini hurried down the street, winding his way through the crowded sidewalk, offering a breathless “Excuse me!” He barreled a path, pushing and shoving people out of his way offering up his hands, fingers bent and crippled by arthritis, in placation. “Pardon me, please!” His knees creaked and popped, lungs throbbed, heart pumped and threatened to constrict.

Home was a around the corner. Just a little more, he told himself, he knew he could do it. Sully looked back, he couldn’t seem them for the people. How did they know? Who tipped them off? Then again, he reasoned, they probably knew most everything.

As he rounded the corner, he stopped for a fresh breath, surely he could spare a second for a crumb of wind. He looked back. There was a hat floating in the sea of pedestrians. That was one of the two men, the tall one, the big guy. Sully hurried on.

He opened the door of his little building, rent controlled and squalid to say the least, and took the steps to the third floor as fast as he could past peeling, stained, wallpaper and muffled arguments from behind closed doors.

Damn the arthritis! His knees felt as though they were breaking. He thought his ticker would probably give out long before his knees. One step at a time; he remember in those woebegone days when he could run up such stair steps in twos.

The last flight. The third floor. Panting, Sully wobbled like a penguin on a mission to his door. A shaking hand flipped through the keys and finally got the door unlocked. He slammed it closed, locked it back and collapsed in the straight-back wooden chair. He fought for breath.

Sully’s chest ached. He was half worried that once he emptied his lungs, he might not be able to inhale.

He watched the door. His pulse slowed, stopped playing drums in his head. His heart quit beating in his throat.

Silence. A muffled sound. Nothing.

Had Sully been mistaken?

The door burst open, wood splintering, cracking like bone, sharp and pointed. Sully jumped, a stifled yell suffocated behind his clenched lips, held in check by his misshapen hands.

The two men strolled in like they owned the one bedroom hole. The big guy, Sully didn’t know him well, cracked his knuckles; his nose twitched. The second man, half obscured by the towering giant, Sully knew him, had known him for many, many, years. Carl Shovin, from right here in this neighborhood. Sully had watched him grow from a chubby, stingy, little kid to the stubby little man before his eyes right now. Their suits were wrinkled, probably second hand. Sully knew they weren’t much better off than himself.

“Tim,” Carl said to the giant, “next time, lets knock first, okay? A little respect for Mr. Cuccini.”

Tim grunted. He had a face like a mushroom.

“Mr. Cuccini,” Carl ran a hand over a crinkled cuff. “How you doing Sully?”

“Good, good,” Sully babbled.

Carl smiled. “Good.”

“Listen, I-”

Carl held up a callused hand. “Sully. We don’t have all day. Okay?”

“But-”

“Sully, you know why we’re here. Lets not make it complicated.”

Sully’s mouth was dry. Tongue like sandpaper. His chest tightened. “Carl, there’s a problem, a little problem.”

Carl chuckled, lighthearted, fake. “You owe us some money, Sully. More properly, you owe Mr. Spats.”

Big Daddy Spats. Sully had instantly regretted all his bad mistakes, all his wrong choices, after just one meeting with Mr. Spats. A psycho? Not so much as ‘no one home’. He was a rabid dog. He would give money to the homeless then mow them down with a machine to take the cutter back.

“But I have a problem, Carl, a problem, listen,” Sully tried telling him.

“I know you have a problem, Sully. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. You got lots of problems, Mr. Cuccini.”

“But the money-”

“Sully!” Carl’s voice stabbed the room like an ice pick. “We know you won this morning at the track. One of our tipsters gave us the lead. The dogs finally paid off for you. Four grand. Way to go, Sully!” Carl’s head bounced from side to side. “Four thousand. That puts a nice dent into what you owe Mr. Spats. Another day like today and we’ll be off your back. But you ain’t got a penchant for gambling, do you Sully, so you’ll probably never have us off your back.”

Sully was sweating. Face frozen. Thoughts rampant.

“So,” Carl said, “the four grand.”

“I don’t have it.” Those little words came out so easy. Like air, Sully thought. Light as air.

“What?” Sully thought Carl sounded ten years old again.

“I checked my pockets. It’s gone. I lost it, I think. It fell out. I don’t know, Carl. It’s gone.” Sully held open his coat. “You can check for yourself, Carl.”

“You lost four thousand dollars, just like that,” Carl snapped his fingers, “and you didn’t even lose it on a bet?”

“Yeah.”

Carl’s face flushed red. “Maybe you don’t understand, Mr. Cuccini, but Mr. Spats really wants his money. I can’t go back to him empty handed.” He looked at Tim. “I can’t back empty handed,” he told Tim. To Sully he said, “You’re in my jurisdiction, Sully. You’re going to make me look bad. If you owe Mr. Spats money, I owe Mr. Spats money, understand.”

Small time hoods, Sully thought. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“SORRY!”

“Please, my heart,” Sully said, arthritic fingers caressing his chest.

His heart didn’t attack. Carl’s gun was out before Sully realized anything at all was happening. The trigger was pulled, the bullet expelled, traveling the short distance of the room to embed itself in Sully Cuccini’s forehead, boring through his brain and exploding out the back of his head before finding a final resting place in the wall.

“Guess I’ll have to make it up elsewhere,” Carl said.

#

She lay on her bed, headphones firmly over her ears. Psychedelic rock plucking notes in her ears, opening infinite spaceways in her mind. Colors, sonic textures, within reach but unattainable. When she got home her mother had started in on her, the school had called. Her mom knew she ditched academia today.

She felt bad. Really, she did. Not for ditching school, though, and not for the mary jane her and her friends had burned that afternoon; although she did buy the weed with Mr. Cuccini’s money.

That’s what she really and truly felt bad about: lifting the money off Sully. Buying pot with it, shoes, make-up, records, beer, cigarettes. She had left Sully at the track and met up with her friends. They made a day of it. What a day, damn.

The music filtered through her head. She was sure her mother was still biting nails downstairs, telling her about her potential, the importance of an education. It was already beginning to fade, to fog over. She could barely remember the words.

But Sully had told her the same things, hadn’t he? Today, at the dog track. He couldn’t understand why such a nice young lady (his words) wanted to hang out with such a bunch of nobodies like himself and the others there. But then his dog won. Boom Boom Blues crossed the finish and Sully had been so elated. Relieved. That was it, he looked really relieved.

And what was the harm? He came back from the window, winnings in an envelope. Sully didn’t even know when she lifted it from his coat pocket. If he couldn’t feel that bundle being slid clean and easy off him, he didn’t really need to be carrying all that cash around, did he? And what would it hurt? He would probably just gamble it all away anyway, bet on another dog that wouldn’t be ahead of the pack.

How much was left? God, she couldn’t remember. Not much. Especially after she lost a fistful of it in the train yard. Gust of wind. Why had she had fistfuls of it? More fog. Less memory. It was really good smoke.

She would have to remember to avoid the track for a while. Maybe school was an option. Maybe not. It was a big city. And she would have to try to stay clear of Sully for a good while, too. He had to know by now. He had to know she took the money. Had to know it was when she hugged him as they parted ways.

She may have to just stay clear of Sully for the rest of her life. He was such a nice old man, too. She should not have done it. Now she was out a friend, she guessed.

No more Mr. Cuccini.

Final frontiers popped through her head. The music was a crystal spaceship, lost amid stars and planets. Fading light. Ancient worlds.

Today she made one less friend. She hoped Sully wasn’t too mad about it. If he was, oh well. She was glad she had the foresight to not use her real name at the track, on the odd occasion anyone ever asked. On the rare instance she made a friend there with the desperate ones. If Sully wanted revenge, wanted to tan her hide good, so to speak, let him come. He wouldn’t find her. Let him look for Katie Ray.

the_novacula